


wildfang

by kafkas



Category: Tokyo Ghoul
Genre: Angst, Body Dysphoria, Gender Issues, M/M, Pining, Trans Male Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-09
Updated: 2018-01-09
Packaged: 2019-03-02 04:50:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,110
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13310913
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kafkas/pseuds/kafkas
Summary: There is a dream he has, of Bremen. Of Tokyo. An impossible impasse. A set of scales, his life with his family on one end, his life in the service of the Tsukiyama household on the other. Karren, his shining skin. Kanae, his base self.It is not so much a choice, he thinks, but rather the expression of a moral predicament.





	wildfang

 

When Karren is a young girl and still living in Germany – or, rather, when Karren is in Germany and still living as a young girl – her mother tells her the story of _Die wahre Braut._ It is an entirely prosaic fairytale; the gentle heroine put to work by her wicked stepmother; the innumerable, impossible tasks – tasks that, after so many years in the service of the Tsukiyama household, will come to seem completely senseless (why on earth should one be compelled to empty a pond with a spoon?); and finally, there is the dashing prince.

Soft-headed, already engaged to be married, the heroine spirits him away from the altar at the last minute. It is assumed that the boy’s fiancée was not as deserving of his affections anyhow. _Und sie lebten glücklich bis ans Ende ihrer Tage._

‘But, Mama, it’s not fair,’ – this being a time where Karren still expects fairness from the world.

Emma shrugs her thin shoulders. ‘I suppose not, _moppelchen_ ,’ she says, and then kisses Karren, Nathanael, and Arunolt goodnight.

Soon, Karren will be the only one of them left alive.

 

 

 

When she’d called the number Mama had told her to upon reaching Berlin, alone – and that is something she will not think about – a cheerful sounding boy had picked up, only to have the phone snatched away from him by an older gentlemen who’d introduced himself as Mirumo. Karren had been in such a state at the time that she’d merely babbled, senselessly, into the receiver until Herr Tsukiyama had been able to piece together what it was that had happened.

Thus, much of Karren’s thirteenth birthday is spent on a sleeper car from Berlin to New Delhi, cutting her hair in a communal toilet cubical. Mama had always said she had the most beautiful hair, and Karren wants suddenly, desperately, to be rid of it, lest Matsuri Washuu pick her out of a crowd.

Stubble sticks to her neck and shoulders; the blade she is using is blunted – the old-fashioned razor she’d used to shave her legs, back in Bremen, and really, what on earth had possessed her to bring that? She’s never enjoyed shaving her legs. Never really enjoyed having long hair either.

‘ _Du bist ein Wildfang_ ,’ her father would always say. Her father...

When she arrives at the airport, the dark eyed woman who has been sent to accompany her – Matsumae, she will later learn – appraises her guardedly. ‘Arunolt?’

‘ _Nein_ , Kanae.’

If Matsumae doubts this at all, she doesn’t proffer any response. Karren will come to love her for it.

 

 

 

The coming months are to be spent behind locked doors while strange men in suits deliberate her fate. Her first night in Japan, Karren sobs until she makes herself sick and Matsumae has to rock her like a baby.

‘ _Ich will meine Mutter!_ ’ she wails, loudly enough to wake their next-door neighbor, a boy of around Karren’s own age. He pokes his head into the room, alarmed and, what with Karren’s sudden and tumultuous arrival, rightfully frightened.

‘Matsumae, is he –?’

‘Go back to bed, Master Shuu. It’s nothing to worry about.’

‘ _Je suis désolé_ ,’ he says, and quickly slips away.

Karren watches him go, wiping her nose. ‘Who was that?’ she croaks.

Matsumae clucks her tongue. ‘Your cousin,’ she murmurs, ‘A very peculiar little boy.’

 

 

 

In Tokyo, she is given room and board. Her bedroom is above the winter kitchen, and is cool all year round, but it is larger and more luxurious than the one she had shared with her brothers back in Bremen. She eats with the servants, which should be a snub, really, if it weren’t for the fact that Master Tsukiyama is risking his life to keep her hidden. She works, though you could hardly call it work – tending the garden and folding away the linen ware – and, though she cannot go to school, Matsumae takes an hour out of every day to instruct her in the arts. Which is necessary, really, in order to understand most of what the son, Shuu, blathers on about.

Consequently, Karren’s life becomes a series of contradictions. She is a servant, but she is also the last surviving member of the Rosewald line. She is treated with respect, yet held at arm’s length from the rest of the family. She is Kanae, but she is also Karren.

Until one day, she’s not.

 

 

 

_Live beautifully, with your head held high, just like that rose._

Perhaps it is the way sound carries from her bedroom to the kitchen, or maybe Matsumae is just otherwise occupied, but it is Shuu – squirreling out a midnight snack – who hears her screaming before anyone else. Karren startles awake only after he has lifted her and shaken her by the shoulders, his face inches from hers.

‘Kanae – Kanae – _mon ami_ –!’ His voice hasn’t broken yet, and in the darkness his face is like a little white moon, lined with worry. How laughable, to be comforted by someone so young.

Karren pushes him away gently, clambering into a sitting position. The sheets are damp, and for one terrifying moment she wonders if she’s wet the bed. But it’s only sweat.

‘Your parents?’ Shuu is still crouched at her side.

Karren shakes her head. ‘ _Nein,_ my brothers.’

His expression crumples sadly. ‘I did not know.’

‘Does your father tell you nothing?’

‘ _Non_ , but I prefer not to gossip.’ He smiles lopsidedly.

Karren is suddenly very aware of their proximity, and of the sheerness of her nightclothes. She draws the sheets up around her, shuddering.

‘ _Tu as froid!_ ’ Shuu reaches forward, pressing a hand to her brow. ‘And no wonder, you’re drenched!’

Before Karren can object – and she certainly does – Shuu has swung himself up onto the mattress and into bed beside her.

‘Master Shuu, what are you –!’

‘Hush, you’ll wake the servants.’

 _I’m a servant too, you know_ , Karren wants to say, but instead she ends up hissing, ‘Master Shuu, this is most inappropriate!’

‘Why?’ Shuu rolls onto his side, head propped up on his hand, ‘We are brothers now, you and I.’

Karren falls silent. Of course, why on earth would such a thing be inappropriate? As Shuu snuggles up to her, a hand swung lazily over her waist – ‘ _Mon Dieu,_ are you a lizard? You run so cold!’ – she feels every muscle in her body tense. She’s never been plump, but if Master Shuu were simply to raise his hand an inch or more – her secret –

‘Goodnight, Kanae.’

Karren swallows dryly. ‘Goodnight, Master Shuu.’

 

 

 

Master Tsukiyama knows. Matsumae surely must have her suspicions. After all, Kanae began as a disguise and any good disguise requires an accomplice or two, to corroborate. She should not be so wary of Master Shuu finding her out. She should not be, and yet –

It is perhaps suffice to say that the eldest Rosewald son is not so much a disguise anymore.

 

 

 

There are plenty of fairytales about alchemy. Mice turning into footmen. Pumpkins into carriages. Princes into frogs and vice versa. Kanae thinks perhaps he is like the lindworm, that his is a transformation borne only through suffering. That there exists a base part of him that has always been like this.

But Karren is also a part of him, and he pines for her often. For the shining skin he’d worn before everything had been flayed away. Sometimes, he pretends to be her, before the mirror, after airing out the late Madame Tsukiyama’s things. His fingers brushing over satin, muslin, and velvet. Precious things.

Kanae is not a precious thing. Though he has been freed from a curse, he is not a prince, and there is no bride awaiting him in his wedding bed.

Master Shuu would be better suited to the role of prince, then, though he does not have a princely bearing. He’s fanciful and capricious; he speaks far too loudly and at length to anyone at all, from butchers to maidservants, possessing, it seems, to concept of class. At the dinner table he braves topics that make the other aristos lapse into awkward silence, a thing he does, Karren suspects, for his own amusement. His clothing is ridiculous. His taste in literature ranges from the vulgar to the sublime. He is often prone to mood swings.

He is, simply, too much of a whole person to be a character in some Grimm fairytale.

Kanae adores him.

 

 

 

For Kanae’s fifteenth birthday, Master Tsukiyama schedules him a meeting with a trusted ghoul physician, Herr Fueguchi, who binds Kanae’s chest for him in increments and issues various suppressants. It makes the work difficult – his back aches – but Kanae knows this is necessary if he is to go on living the way he has been.

He had panicked, when Master Tsukiyama had broached the matter, thinking he was to be asked to desist.

_Kindisch, kindisch – du bist kindisch!_

But Mirumo had only smiled and clapped him on the shoulder. ‘You’re growing up to be very handsome, Kanae. _Joyeux anniversaire._ ’

An exaggeration, of course. Kanae knows how he looks. He’d never grown into his features like his older brothers had; the planes of his face too wide, his eyebrows too drawn.

‘Eyes like a possum,’ Chie had said, once, and she’d been joking, but…

Well, Master Shuu just keeps getting more and more handsome by the day. And the more handsome he gets, the more interest people begin to take. He’s scarcely around anymore, and when he is he’s always bringing home unsavory types like Kamashiro Rize.

Rize had thought he was Shuu’s little brother. She’d ruffled his hair and beamed at him like he was half her age, then patted him on the back and told him to leave so that the grownups could talk. Kanae hates her.

And his hating her has nothing to do with him catching she and Shuu snogging at the piano. Not at all. Why would it? It’s not as if he’s –

 

 

 

‘You and Master Shuu were to be matched,’ Matsumae says one day, out of nowhere.

Kanae pauses in watering the Damasks, satisfied that his grip on the watering can does not quake. ‘Oh?’ he replies, perfectly calm.

‘The Tsukiyama branch intermarries, as I’m sure you’re well aware. There was originally some girl in Monte Carlo, I think her name was Clothilde. But – ah, they’re all gone now. Swept away in the last big pogrom.’

‘A French bride.’ Kanae smiles sourly. ‘Master Shuu would have liked that.’

‘I’m not sure he’s the marrying type.’ Matsumae gazes at him frankly. ‘He cares for you very deeply, Kanae.’

Kanae, certain this conversation is headed in an undesirable direction, shrugs. ‘ _Er ist mein Bruder_.’

‘Yes, so you keep saying.’ Matsumae, finished with the weeding, brushes the dirt from her gardening gloves. ‘Though I wonder sometimes if you are as convinced of that as he is. Or as happy for it.’

‘I don’t know what you mean.’

The Damasks are beginning to blur together now, periwinkle, mauve, and tuscia. Kanae sucks in a deep breath, raises the watering can again. Matsumae pauses a moment at the hothouse door, her expression stern.

‘Don’t torture yourself, Kanae,’ she turns, calling over her shoulder, ‘There are plenty of people out there who’ll do that for you.’

 

 

 

‘Rize means well,’ Shuu whispers, ‘It’s just that she’s never really had a friend before.’ They are lying in Kanae’s bed together, as they have done since his initial night terrors. Not necessarily a secret rendezvous but Kanae doubts Master Tsukiyama would wholly approve.

‘ _Sie ist eine Schlampe_.’

Shuu laughs, a low rumbling. ‘You’re very cruel.’

‘Yesterday she pinched me.’

‘And in a week’s time, she’ll have graduated and gone off to Seinan, and you’ll never have to see her again.’

Kanae feels his throat constrict. ‘Won’t see you either.’

Shuu sighs deeply, his arms pillowed behind his head. ‘There _are_ a lot of contact hours.’

‘Why not just work for your father?’

A mocking gasp. ‘Kanae, I’m shocked you’d think me so uninspired.’

Kanae shrugs, irritated, trying not to be. ‘It’s just a thought.’

Suddenly Shuu lunges forward into a sitting position, looking absolutely mortified. ‘It’s your birthday soon!’

‘Mm,’ Kanae grunts, drawing patterns on the duvet with his fingernail.

‘I completely forgot!’

‘Didn’t Matsumae write it in your planner?’

‘You wound me.’ Shuu tugs on his bottom lip. Kanae tries not to track the movement. ‘Kanae, Kanae, what to get Kanae…?’

‘You could get out of my bed, for starters.’

Shuu throws him a dirty look. ‘I’m trying to salvage this, _mon cousin._ ’

Kanae flops onto his back, groaning. ‘We’re family. You don’t have to get me anything.’

‘ _Absurdité_ , of course I do. What about the Tom Ford spring line?’

Kanae sniffs. ‘Insipid.’

‘Then at least let me take you to dinner.’

Kanae opens his mouth to argue, then hesitates. Shuu’s eyes are wide and glistening in the dark. He’s got that frantic look about him – the one he gets whenever he’s absolutely fixated on something. It’s a face that’s very hard to say no to.

‘ _Also gut_ ,’ he mutters, and, before Shuu can become completely ecstatic, ‘But I’m not going anywhere near your ghastly ghoul restaurant.’

‘ _Ovviamente_.’

 

 

 

They take dinner in the hothouse; Shuu’s idea, as he had, in the end, been unable to wrestle with Kanae’s Teutonic asceticism. Somebody – Matsumae, most likely – has thrown open the French windows and, though it’s an unseasonably warm night, a pleasant breeze ruffles the hydrangeas that border the central rotunda. Kanae wears the white linen suit he’d purchased with his own wages, during the Tsukiyamas’ annual foray through the Adriatic. He remembers that summer fondly; the intimate parties, the nights spent out on the patio; how Kanae had been allowed to wander freely about the local palazzo, heedless, for once, that one of Matsuri Washuu’s men might be watching; how strange it had been to see the family’s few trusted servants – buttoned-up Mairo, saintly Aliza, even Matsumae, though she’d only dipped her toes – in their striped swimsuits.

Kanae had not joined them, for obvious reasons. Master Shuu had badgered him incessantly – even going so far as to swipe his copy of Forster and threaten to throw it in the pool. Kanae had tolerated him then as he tolerates him now, still yammering on about buying him a present. He has never, Kanae thinks, known when to leave well enough alone. It’s a wonder he remains as clueless as he is.

‘What about Anouilh’s _Antigone_ , in the original French?’

‘We already own that.’

‘Not the first edition!’

‘Now you’re just buying things for yourself.’

Master Shuu deflates, resting his chin in his hand. ‘ _Sei impossibile._ ’

‘Not impossible, just frugal.’

They lapse into silence, Master Shuu reaching for the decanter of blood wine. Somewhere in the garden, a bird cries out – Kanae thinks it might be a nightingale, which would truly be in keeping with the estate’s fairytale allure. An enchanted castle in the middle of Tokyo, Master Tsukiyama its king, Shuu its prince, Matsumae their knight of the round table.

Kanae, the lowly footman.

_Und sie lebten glücklich bis ans Ende ihrer Tage._

It’s on the tip of Kanae's tongue to ask him. He has perhaps had a little too much to drink and is feeling inordinately bold. And besides, with all that Shuu has done for him this evening it doesn’t seem half so preposterous, so absurd, that he might –

That he could –

Well. Not as preposterous as it seems in the daytime, anyway.

‘Master Shuu.’ He can taste the wine lingering on the roof of his mouth, tannic, astringent. ‘You really don’t have to give me a birthday present.’

‘Nonsense, Kanae, we must find you something! Even if it’s the smallest thing!’

‘No, that’s not what I –’ Kanae fumbles. His face feels hot. ‘I mean, you don’t have to – to _buy_ –’

‘Ah.’ A look of understanding settles over Master Shuu. ‘It is something I already have at my disposal, _non?_ ’

‘—n… uss.’

‘Pardon, _mon cousin?_ You’ll have to speak up if you truly want what it is you desire.’ Shuu’s smile is coaxing, gentle. _Oh, but he is so kind._

‘ _Ein Kuss_ ,’ Kanae mumbles, so softly the words barely disturb the air around them. Yet Master Shuu hears him all the same.

‘ _Ein Kuss?_ ’ He blinks at Kanae dumbly, still smiling. ‘Well, why didn’t you say so?’

He leans in, pecks him on the cheek as he has done a hundred times before. Kanae draws backward, cringing.

‘ _N-nein, nein – auf den Mund_.’

‘ _Auf den_ …’ Shuu cocks his head, ‘I’m sorry, cousin, I don’t think I understand, I –’

Periwinkle, mauve, tuscia. Tears falling hot into his hands. Kanae wishes the ground would open up and swallow him.

‘Oh.’ That same, crumpled look as when he’d asked about Nathanael and Arunolt. ‘Oh, Kanae, _mon petit._ ’

‘ _Es tut mir Leid_ ,’ He scrambles to his feet, away from Shuu’s outstretched hands, ‘ _Es tut mir sehr leid._ ’

‘You have nothing to be sorry for.’

‘ _Ich bin pervers_.’

‘No, you’re not – you’re –’ Shuu trails away, voice a dying croak. ‘You’re not,’ he restates, firmly.

Kanae lingers just long enough to glimpse the hesitation on Shuu’s face – and, beneath it, the weary defeat – before turning on his heels and fleeing.

 

 

 

Shuu leaves for Seinan Gakuin the following week. Kanae reluctantly joins the other servants in the forecourt to see him off, and witnesses the complicit nod he shares with Matsumae as he passes by. Kanae tries not to feel resentful, but scowls at his feet all the same. He is not a child. He does not need supervising.

He resents, too, the gift Shuu has left him. A thicket of Soleil d’Ors, imported the day before from the United Kingdom. Golden like a sunrise – Kanae’s favorite.

They’re perfect. He cannot look at them.

 

 

 

_Do I deserve –_

The dress is tulle, lavender; cordoned at the waist with a black velvet sash. Too girlish for a woman of Madame Tsukiyama’s status, doubtless a remnant from some childhood soiree. A trip to the opera, Kanae thinks, or perhaps a debutante’s ball. The tissue paper rustles as he pushes it aside and suddenly he is overwhelmed with the idea that he is doing something illicit.

Carding through the late mistress’s clothes is one thing. Trying them on is quite another.

 _Eine Minute,_ whispers another voice, his own but also not, _Just to see._

Kanae shivers, standing in the musty shift he has not worn for so many years.

_The longer you stand here, the bigger the chance of you being caught._

Screwing shut his eyes, Kanae tips the dress over his head, the silky inner-lining making it seem as if he were diving into cold water. The neckline comes to rest lower than it might have had someone else been wearing it, and the skirts settle oddly about his hips, sagging.

Kanae cracks open one eye, then the other, blinks at himself in the gauzy mirror. It is not the horror show he has been expecting, but neither is it a vision of beauty.

_Have I always looked so awkward?_

He sways from side to side, the tulle hissing in the quiet, watching the sharp jut of his shoulders, his bandy legs with their knobby knees. Kanae crinkles his nose.

‘ _Scheisse_.’

It is not that he had wanted to be Karren again. It’s just that he had wondered if he could – if a part of him still –

Matsuri Washuu killed his family. If not for their sacrifice, Kanae would have never existed. He wonders if that’s right. Surely it is wrong, to profit from such cruelty. Surely he does not deserve –

A flash in the darkness. Rapid-fire shuttering. Kanae bristles, his kakugan flaring.

‘Matsumae’s going to flip her shit if she finds out you’ve been rifling around in here.’

‘ _Little rat_ ,’ Kanae snarls.

‘Careful, or you’ll tear your dress.’ Chie stares at him sedately, her face, as always, an incorrigible mask. ‘It’s pretty. Purple’s not your color though. You look like a superhero.’

Kanae blanches, angry, embarrassed. ‘I wasn’t –’

‘It’s okay, you don’t need to explain.’

Chie turns, camera swinging from its lanyard. Kanae doesn’t bother to ask her to delete the photos. He knows she won’t share them with anybody. Knows she won’t tell Master Shuu, either. Chie prizes secrets just as highly as he does – perhaps even more so.

‘I’ll be waiting downstairs. You’re taking me to Mister Donut.’

‘I most certainly am not!’

‘Tsukiyama-san’s at a lecture today.’ Chie quirks an eyebrow. ‘He _said_ you’d do it.’

Kanae grits his teeth. _Arschloch._

 

 

 

_Do I deserve to –_

‘I never wanted to be a girl. If we were engaged, I’d have been miserable about it. But now I don’t think I’d mind it – being miserable with him. I think I’d give the world for it.’

‘Weird.’

‘ _Es ist Liebe._ ’

‘Love,’ Chie says, punctuating her speech with a stab at her chocolate sundae, ‘ _shouldn’t_ make you miserable.’

Kanae smiles. ‘You are very young.’

Chie proffers him one of her cold, implacable looks. ‘So are you.’

 

 

 

There is a verse by Rilke he still remembers from his father’s book of poetry:

_Out of infinite longings rise_

_finite deeds like weak mountains,_

_falling back just in time and trembling._

A pathetic sentiment, just like those expressed in Mama’s fairytales. 

Kanae is _d_ _ie wahre Braut._ He is going to tear Kaneki Ken apart with his bare hands.

 

 

 

He does not eat. He barely drinks. Sometimes Kanae hears him shout out in his sleep, hears Matsumae’s harried footsteps, and thinks back on his first weeks with the Tsukiyama household. He wonders if Shuu had felt so afraid, so helpless at the sound of his own distress.

 

 

 

‘It’s not his fault. You know how Tsukiyama-san gets when he’s obsessed with something. What could the kid have done?’

‘He could have stayed away,’ Kanae growls.

Chie looks down at her rolls of film thoughtfully before glancing back up. ‘Could _you?_ ’ she says.

 

 

 

Emaciated, shuddering, Shuu drops a kiss into the palm of his hand.

‘ _Mein kleiner Soldat._ ’

Kanae has to stop his bitter laughter from burbling up past his lips. It figures this is what it would take for him to get his birthday wish.

 

 

 

There is a dream he has, of Bremen. Of Tokyo. An impossible impasse. A set of scales, his life with his family on one end, his life in the service of the Tsukiyama household on the other. Karren, his shining skin. Kanae, his base self.

It is not so much a choice, he thinks, but rather the expression of a moral predicament.

 

 

 

Midnight, the witching hour. The bed is doubly occupied; Shuu’s chest rising and falling with each shallow breath, as steady as the clock dully ticking on the dresser, Kanae resting as still as a corpse, his hands folded atop the duvet – neither of them truly asleep, though Shuu is perhaps more complacent in his wakefulness. Kanae cranes his neck, examines his profile silhouetted in the moonlight. Roman nose, very heroic. A prince’s face.

_Do I deserve to be happy?_

Kanae steels himself and presses his lips to the shell of Shuu’s ear. In the oppressive, velvety gloom, he can just make-out the glossy slit of his eye, half-open, waiting.

‘ _Mein_ …’ His throat issues a discordant click as it closes up, reticent.

‘Kanae,’ Shuu murmurs, and a hand grips his beneath the sheets.

‘ _Mein Name ist Karren_ ,’ the words stumble over each other in his hurry to get them out, ‘We were to be matched. _Ich bin eine Frau_.’

There comes a horrible, hammering moment where Kanae wants to hurl himself from the bed and go tearing from the room. Where his chest constricts and sweat breaks out across the hollow of his throat, under his arms. _Er hasst mich er hasst mich er hasst mich er hasst mich –_

And then Shuu rolls onto his side so that they are facing. He does not smile, but still, his expression is kind. His face is a white moon in the darkness.

‘No, you’re not.’

A beat.

All the air Kanae has been holding in his lungs leaves him in one great rush and he sobs, burying his face in Shuu’s chest. Shuu reaches up, spindly wrists, hands like an old crone’s. He folds Kanae in his arms.

 

 

 

‘I thought you’d think I – _lied_ ,’ Kanae whispers, later.

‘Lied? About what?’

‘ _Nichts, nichts_. _Ich bin ein Mann, aber_ …’

‘You didn’t think I’d understand.’

‘ _Ja_.’

Shuu scoffs, turning so that he lies staring up at the canopy, an arm still coiled around Kanae’s shoulders. ‘ _Mon cousin_ , I’m shocked you’d think me so uninspired.’

Kanae sniffles. Kanae laughs.

 

 

 

_And yet, what otherwise remains silent,_

_our happy energies – show themselves_

_in these dancing tears._

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> [♫](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cei1hqkQJbE)


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